This present invention concerns the prevention of oil spillage due to accidental rupture of a tank or tanks of a ship.
With the advent of supertankers, a single spill incident can (i) cause significant damage to the environment, (i) disrupt the
ecological balance, and (i) cause substantial economic loss. The recent accident of EXXON VALDEZ is perhaps the worst oil spillage disaster in U.S. history. The EXXON VALDEZ leaked about 240,000 barrels--over 10 million gallons--of oil. The economic and environmental cost of the leak is estimated to have been over one billion dollars. Three weeks after the EXXON VALDEZ accident an Indian tanker spilled about a million gallons of oil in the vicinity of Saudi Arabia. Still another example of recent supertanker accident is the case of AMERICAN TRADER that spilled 400,000 gallons near Huntington Beach, Calif. on Feb. 7 , 1990.
Previous efforts to control damage from accidental rupture to the tanks of ships have principally been limited to `containment and dispersement` of the spilled oil. Although some emphasis has been made on naval architectural solutions to limit damage from spills--such as by adding a double bottom to the hull and by employing compartmentalized design and structural strengthening to prevent cracking of the hull--limited private and governmental resources have heretofore been directed to prevent the spillage of oil once a rupture to a ship's tank occurs. The present invention is concerned with preventing oil from spilling from ruptured vessel, including from an oil tanker of any size.